Good things come in threes
by fiesa
Summary: It is different. And yet, it is exactly as it always was. Alice returns to Wonderland. OneShot.


_A/N _

_The story immediately popped into my head when I was watching the movie - it was awesome, by the way - and I started writing it as soon as I was home again._

_I hope you like it!_

_Disclaimer: Neither the book nor the movie belong to me... _

_

* * *

  
_

Good things come in threes

It all looked so... So _different._ And yet, it was the same.

Alice returns to Wonderland.

It´s the third time she comes here, the third time she has fallen through a hole at the foot of a tree. This time, she remembers everything. This time, she takes the key and immediately finds the door, returns to the table to find the little vial of shrinking potion, drowns a few gulps and even remembers to take the little cake she finds next to the left foot of the table. She makes her way back to the door and unlocks it, steps through and finds herself in a place full of wonders, beautiful, strange flowers and tiny birds and insects and knows she finally is back.

She´s not the little girl who was drawn by curiosity more than anything and who found a world so beautiful and strange she named it Wonderland.

She´s not the young woman who ran away from reality and believed everything in this weird country was her own dream.

She has grown and matured and aged, now she has seen the world, the people and knows the difference between imagination, dream and reality. She has visited different countries, read many books, talked to many people and lived the life she chose. She doesn´t care she´s looked at oddly at some times. People are still getting used to the fact that she does as she wishes even though she´s a woman. The world emancipation isn´t known yet, but Alice knows what she wants.

* * *

_I imagine six impossible things before breakfast, _her father´s words dance through her wide open mind. This world is impossible. The fact that she´s here is impossible. The fact that her hair is slowly turning into the shining gold it was when she was young, that her legs are feeling strong and vital again, that her pace quickens and her shoulders square and she feels younger than she´s ever felt during the last years is impossible. The mirroring water of a little pond showing her a face younger than her real age, showing her a girl in her twenties again, is impossible. But then, impossible things have always been familiar to Alice. Age falls from her like water with every step she takes.

Nobody seems to have noticed her arrival yet. She´s glad. She´s disappointed. How will they greet her? Have they changed at all? Will they remember her? Will they be happy to see her again? She has been away for so many years. Time flows differently here, she knows that, but she can´t say _how_ differently it has been passing. What has happened while she was gone? What has changed? Who has changed?

* * *

The first time, it had been an adventure and later a bad dream. The second time, it was a flight, nothing more, a flight that ended up in her having to fight the Jabberwocky and defeating the Queen of Hearts. The third time, _this_ time, it´s final. _You could always stay here_, a voice echoes inside her. The Hatter, with his green eyes and his impish smile, his bright-red hair and his cylinder. Her reply: _That was really funny, Hatter!_ It hadn´t been funny then and it still isn´t. Maybe she wished to stay – who could say if she didn´t even know it herself – but she had needed to leave again, needed to return to the manor and the waiting crowd and the man whom she owed an answer. That afternoon, she had grown up. She had started to live her life, to choose her ways and to decide on her own fate. Similarly, she has now decided to journey to Wonderland again. And it´s not only a visit this time. It´s a return.

Her worn, black dress and grey shawl are replaced by a blue dress. It´s always blue when she comes here, she notices and smiles. She likes the color that resembles the sky overhead. She walks through the forest, her feet sure of where to go. She cannot remember the path but she knows it by heart. Birds skip through the trees. Not only birds but fantastic creatures, something that looks like a fairy, something like a cow´s bell, sounding softly through the early afternoon. People will think she has died, and in a way, she has, but she doesn´t feel dead. It´s the opposite: she hasn´t felt that alive in years. People will miss her, but they´ll continue with their own lives soon. There´s too much trouble in life to dwell on lost things and people for too long.

* * *

Three times she has wandered this path.

Three times she has left the wood and found herself on a sheltered meadow, a long table stretching out over the most of it. It´s loaded with cups and dishes and teapots, cookies and cakes and sugar pots and milk cans. There are plenty of chairs. There are plenty of guests. There are many faces Alice knows.

Three times every face has turned to her.

Three times she reads the varying emotions and expressions:

The first time they light up with wonder.

The second time with hope.

The third time with surprise. And then with welcome.

Something she didn´t know she had been carrying for all those years suddenly falls from her shoulders. Alice smiles at her friends, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the March Hare, the white Rabbit, the twins, the little hazel mouse.

"Alice!", someone whispers. "Alice! Alice!"

A cup comes flying at her. She ducks. It´s so quiet she can hear her heart beating joyously. Nervously. She takes a deep breath and walks forward.

"I´m back."

She is. For the third and final time, Alice returns to Wonderland. Where she belongs.

*

*

*

_Welcome home._

_*_

_*_


End file.
